


always be there, you and i

by ㅎㅊ도 (HChnD)



Category: TOO | Ten Oriented Orchestra (Band)
Genre: DayThree, Gen, Ghosts, Imaginary Friends, Not Beta Read, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HChnD/pseuds/%E3%85%8E%E3%85%8A%EB%8F%84
Summary: woonggi never stopped having imaginary friends and that was fine with him. he loved their presence.
Relationships: Cha Woonggi & Everyone
Kudos: 23
Collections: Arthur's Adventures With Fic Fests, freak week 2020





	always be there, you and i

woonggi had, all his life, loved his imaginary friends. they started appearing to him at a very young age and he didn’t know how to live without them. they felt real to him, and for a long time, he actually thought they were real. when he was five he recalled meeting a boy who looked a lot like himself and, obviously, he told about him to his mother. she had only laughed about it for a while and he thought it was like having a twin brother, and he laughed to himself with the thought of introducing as cha jaedol instead of cha woonggi would make people confused as to who was who. and it was then where he discovered that no one could see him, because whenever he pointed to his friend and asked who was who, no one understood what he meant.

it became a little more clear when jaedol simply didn’t age at all and eventually faded.

despite the loss of one friend, though, he never stopped meeting new friends. at age nine he met a charming girl who liked to call herself sunshine, who would teach him funny dances and play with his head once he was sleepy. at age thirteen he weirdly enough became friends with an old man who resembled a lot of the fade memory he had of his grandfather, and whom in response treated him as his grandson.

now he was nineteen and, despite no one else having friends only they could see, woonggi still had them. plenty of them, actually.

“woonggi-yah, baby, you have classes in a bit. wake up, woonggi-yah.”

“mmm, don’t wanna, minsu-hyung… it’s warm…”

“yeah, yeah, but it’s late already.” he heard a soft laugher coming from above him, one hand shaking his body. woonggi complained quietly, not wanting to get up. but he knew that the other had a point, and eventually, allowed himself to get dragged out of bed. he rubbed his eye as minsu showed him his uniform and started blabbing about jaeyun, who was another friend of his, helped him to sort out stuff before it was time to get up.

“is jaeyun-hyung still around?”

minsu shook his head. “no, he felt like he had some stuff to do. but he stayed around while you slept and he even helped me to get your food ready.”

he gasped. “you’ve prepared my breakfast already?”

“of course we did, silly.”

upon hearing that, woonggi felt more awake, quickly dressing up and going towards the kitchen. indeed there was a sandwich and a glass of orange juice ready for him. in no time he was devouring it, pleased with how tasty it was.

in the middle of his meal minsu said he had to go but that he had made sure he wouldn’t walk home alone. woonggi nodded at the older, not paying much attention to where he went to.

he finished his sandwich and juice quickly, and in a couple of minutes, he left his house. his parents were already out, as both worked really hard, so he locked the place and put his keys onto the pocket of his jacket.

“hey, kid.”

woonggi jumped at the voice, but once he recognized it, he made a face at its owners. “i’m nineteen, chan-hyung.”

“yeah, yeah, still a kid.” 

he rolled his eyes and proceeded to walk. “if you don’t like me you can always let me go to school on my own.”

“who said i don’t like you?” chan raised a brow, walking in the same pace as woonggi. “sure you’re a bit too odd for what i’m used to and much younger than i am, but not like you is a bit too much.”

“i am _so_ pleased to hear that,” he deadpanned in response. “it’s fine though, i also think you’re too normal and very old.”

“hey!” the older complained right away but in no time he was laughing it out. woonggi laughed too, changing the subject as he kept moving.

his school wasn’t exactly far, which meant he could go by feet without an issue. it still was quite a walk, with too many ups that tired himself out, so he walked slowly. at least he rarely did the path on his own, and with all the chatter, it passed by fast. 

“chihoon-hyung said he would go with me today, but he didn’t. did something happen?”

“ah, no, no, it’s just--” chan cleared his throat. “chihoon and i have been working on some stuff and he was too absorbed on it to come, so i am here instead.”

“ah… music, right?” woonggi asked despite knowing the answer. “when will i be able to hear your stuff, hyung?”

the older paused at that, taking a while to look at the high schooler. “woonggi. we-- you know that we--”

“woonggi-yah!” he heard someone call from afar and, upon looking to the side, he spotted dongpyo running towards his direction. “come on, you silly boy, you’re going to be late! what are you doing standing here on the gate?”

“i was just talking to--” he looked at chan again, who gave him a sad smile before turning around. right. dongpyo couldn’t see him. “i got distracted, sorry.”

“you are such an airhead.” his friend pulled him by the arm, soon crossing his own around it. “gosh, we’re not even in the same grade and i must walk you to your class door. you know i live near you, right? i can walk you to school.”

“you will have to go back a few blocks just for me, so no.”

_besides, i never go home alone._

“huh, right. anyway, the offer is up.” he gave the other some pats in the shoulder before stepping backwards. “my classroom is that way so i should be going. don’t forget we promised hyeongjun we’d go out on saturday!”

“wait, we did? but i--”

he watched his friend run through the hallways, not allowing him to answer. damn it, he had promised kyungho he would visit that one puppy cafe… hopefully they could go there along dongpyo and hyeongjun then. it’s not like they’d notice the extra person anyway. 

he sighed. woonggi hated that he couldn’t introduce his other friends to dongpyo. it was weird to admit that he saw people, that he never left the imagination phase and still had friends only he could see. but, after years that they popped into his life and have always been there for him, they became truly important. it sucked that they weren’t real despite it feeling like they were. the memories he had with all of them, with kyungho and jisu’s dancing, with the loud karaoke nights with minsu and sungmin, with the teasing chihoon and jeyou always got, the scares everyone put on donggeon, and of course the bits of advice both chan and jaeyun gave him. they were all too real to be a creation from his head and he wished he could share them with the world. 

but sadly he couldn’t. so he just sighed sadly at the thought and went to class, quietly watching everything with a bored expression. 

“you always come in here?”

woonggi jumped on his spot, glaring at jisu who was sitting on the vacant chair beside him. “hyung! i am in class!” he whispered a bit too loud for a classroom, but gladly, it was left unnoticed. 

“so i am assuming you do, nice.”

“what are you doing here? i will let minsu-hyung know about this if you don’t go!”

“calm down! hey! i just came by because we are all making up some stuff but we wanted to know if it’s alright with you. it will get your house messy but we promise to clean if you help.”

“what--” he couldn't believe what he was hearing, but he needed that conversation to end fast. “fine, whatever, do it. what are you guys going to do?”

“ah, that’s a secret. you can’t know. don’t worry, donggeon-hyung will be waiting for you once classes end, okay? until then!”

“jisu-hy--”

before he could say anything else, the older gave him a foxy grin and vanished before his eyes. woonggi rolled his eyes, what an extra guy he was. 

but still, he had classes to watch, and so, he turned towards the teacher. all he could do was to daydream about what his imaginary friends are pulling up to this time.

  
  
  


“we should tell him soon,” chan spoke quietly, still eyeing the school but from far away. he wasn’t alone, he could sense it even if he couldn’t see them. he sighed. “we can’t protect him any longer.”

“it’s not something easy to say, hyung,” jeyou, who was a few steps behind him, said. the older turned around, eyeing not only the short dark-haired man but the tall blond figure beside him. “it will shock him, he’s too innocent to understand.”

“he’s _nineteen_.”

“yet he still thinks we are his imaginary friends,” sungmin replied. “i agree that we should tell him, but it’s hard to when he barely any living friend. how can we just drop the bomb that all nine of us died?”

“and when our purpose is done?!” he raised his voice at that. “when we suddenly vanish from his life, do you think that won’t shock him?”

“hyung,” jeyou spoke after a while, both affected by those words. “we _will_ tell him. but we should be careful about how we do it. just-- calm down, okay? we have been protecting him for a couple of years now, we can’t be reckless now.”

“yeah. and it’s not like any of us will be gone so soon. we will have time to do it right.”

chan clicked his tongue in annoyance but he understood it. he really did. but he also understood woonggi’s side and all of this was frustrating. 

“i am feeling some heavy tension in here,” he saw jisu emerge from thin air, walking from the school with a smug. “what is wrong?”

“it’s nothing, jisu-yah, just chan-hyung and his everyday worry.”

“ah.”

”is it not everyone’s worry?” he questioned. “if not, it should.”

sungmin nodded. “i am sure everyone is concerned in one way or another. but let’s be careful about it okay? and think a lot before telling him.”

“we could always drop some hints,” jeyou added.

“besides,” jisu continued, “he might be naive but he’s not stupid. even if it takes him hard he will eventually get over it. so don’t think much about it.”

“wow, choi jisu being serious.”

“hush, you.”

chan tuned off the bickering that started to happen, returning his attention to the school. he just wanted woonggi to be happy. once he had died he had never felt joy again, trapped in the human world for some reason, until he found a person who could see the dead. he’s made him feel alive again, somehow, and he treasured that. they all did, in a way or another, for different reasons. it was sad that for him they were all not real, when in fact they were. in a way, they were very real.

“chan-hyung? we should be heading back,” sungmin called him. “if we want to be back all nine of us for tonight.”

“ah… right.”

he nodded at the three dead men who were staring at him. with a sigh, he dematerialized his body, noticing his companions doing the same.

and then, they were gone.


End file.
